Day 94: Friday, December 7, 2012
Port to Port: Three Rookers Bar to Tarpon Springs
Underway: 9:40 am Motor Off: 11:50 pm Miles Traveled: 9.4 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: First time going backwards to a port.
Mile to Mile: Three Rookers Bar is a beautiful anchorage fairly well protected from all sides except an east breeze. Guess which direction the wind came from overnight? After a lumpy night with intermittent sleep we awoke to light fog and overcast skies – what the heck, I thought we were in Florida.
Today is an extremely short day compared to our normal travel day – less than 10 miles to Turtle Cove Marina – but it still took more than two slow hours against the outgoing tide and wind (while towing the dinghy). We averaged only about 4.5 mph – a lot slower than our normal slow pace of 6 mph. But at least we were in marked channels most of the way and could relax and not worry about crab pots. We are obviously getting back to civilization, though, as many more boats are passing through the channel.
With many marinas to pick from in the Tarpon Springs area, it looks like we made a good choice. The staff at Turtle Cove are wonderful and the showers are amazing. There is a Christmas party tomorrow night at the Marina and Tarpon Springs is having a celebration tonight with food booths, hay rides, Santa, live reindeer and real snow. There is even a lighted boat parade. We spent a couple hours organizing the boat, cleaning the ugly, months-long scum line off Aurora’s waterline and taking long hot showers. Now we are ready to have fun.
It always amazes me how friendly and helpful people are in marinas. We met our neighbor John (The Cable Guy) soon after arriving. He lives locally and gave us lots of information on places to go and had suggestions for places to stay down the way. Thanks John.
We caught up with Loopi Kiwi here (loopykiwi.blogspot.com). We figured they would be farther along but they took the scenic route to get here. Phil and his wife Carolyn are from New Zealand and been Looping for a while. Phil is an amazing musician I guess. We met them briefly at Green Turtle Bay and we were disappointed that we hadn’t been able to enjoy his impromptu guitar concerts and sing-alongs at docktails. Maybe we will get the chance at Turtle Cove.
Even though the Looper community is relatively small, we do get around. As I was walking back from visiting with Loopy Kiwi, I heard my name being called and up running come Eddy and Linda from Spiritus. What a wonderful surprise. After hugs all around, we shared quick stories about the crossing from hell and learned they stayed here for over a week (loved it) and moved on to Dunedin where they have been for two weeks and loving it even more. They happened to be in town to visit an old friend and to see the festivities in Tarpon Springs. They randomly saw Cindy and I walking back from the showers and tracked us down – talk about a small world. It was wonderful catching up with them – hopefully we will get some more time to talk and laugh at Dunedin. We also reconnected with Gil and Marina on Truthsayer – we met them at Carabbell and they also crossed the gulf on the same day and night. His regular radio checks with us were a very welcome gift that night. They are staying at a different marina but we ended up running into each other in downtown Tarpon Springs wandering along the street enjoying the celebration. Amazing.
After exploring the shops lining the sponge docks (sponge diving and Greek food are major industries here), we wandered over to “Old” Tarpon Springs to see the Christmas festivities. The decorations, Santa’s, live music, real snow and crowds of families with kids are starting to get us into the Christmas spirit. What a wonderful night for a celebration. We decided to skip the lighted boat parade and went back to Aurora, made nachos and strawberry margaritas, relaxed and crashed by 9 pm. I know, we’re wimps but we’re happy wimps.